Part of 4. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:43 pm on 31 January 2023.
I'm grateful to the Minister for that response. It's certainly true to say that partnership working is a feature of the response of the Welsh Government. I'm not convinced it's a successful feature, I have to say. There's almost the equivalent of a whole hospital full of patients in the Aneurin Bevan health board area who, at any time, are able to be discharged into the community, but we're not able to do so. My feeling is that, all too often, we are putting enormous pressures on members of staff and service leaders to work around structures that are created, rather than to create structures that provide coherence in the delivery of services.
It appears to me, and I've been sitting here for perhaps too many years now, but, it appears to me—[Interruption.] [Laughter.] I'll carry on. It appears to me that it is time to bring these services together to create a single, coherent social care organisation that is able to deliver the care that people need and is able to support our professionals in the way they're delivering their job. Is it too late to recognise, Minister, that the number of boards and partnerships and other structures we've put in place simply are not delivering the care that people have the right to and deserve?